Struggle for Intimacy

Janet Woititz, mother of the recovery movement, sensitively addresses the barriers of trust and intimacy that children learn in an alcoholic family. She provides suggestions for building loving relationships with friends, partners, and spouses.

The ACA Fellowship Text was anonymously written by ACA members and provides guidance on working the 12 -step ACA program, leading to recovery from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA WSO has adapted AA's steps (with permission from AA) to address the effects of childhood trauma and neglect and offer hope to ACAs worldwide.

After the Tears: Helping Adult Children of Alcoholics Heal Their Childhood Trauma

The trauma and grief of growing up in an alcoholic or addicted family create a lifetime of baggage. If you grew up in an addicted family, the dysfunction that permeated every aspect of your childhood may have seemed "normal", and you may not even realize the level of affect alcohol still has on your adult life - whether or not you drink. If you are one of the millions of Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs), the cost of your childhood pain can be unbearable. You may have learned how to "survive", but are you "living" your life?

Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics

This new edition of Perfect Daughters, a pivotal book in the ACoA movement, identifies what differentiates the adult daughters of alcoholics from other women. When this groundbreaking book first appeared over 10 years ago, Dr. Ackerman identified behavior patterns shared by daughters of alcoholics. Adult daughters of alcoholics - "perfect daughters" - operate from a base of harsh and limiting views of themselves and the world.

Adult Children: The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families

It is estimated that as many as 34 million people grew up in alcoholic homes. But what about the rest of us? What about families that had no alcoholism, but did have perfectionism, workaholism, compulsive overeating, intimacy problems, depression, problems in expressing feelings, plus all the other personality traits that can produce a family system much like an alcoholic one? Countless millions of us struggle with these kinds of dysfunctions every day, and until very recently we struggled alone.

Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families

Have you ever heard of your inner child? Well, this is the classic book that started it all. In 1987, Charlie Whitfield's breakthrough concept of the child within - that part of us which is truly alive, energetic, creative. and fulfilled - launched the inner child movement. Healing the Child Within describes how the inner child is lost to trauma and loss, and how by recovering it, we can heal the fear, confusion and unhappiness of adult life.

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

A source of healing and inspiration for millions, this modern classic spent over three years on the New York Times best seller list and made codependency a household word. Codependent No More contains dozens of real-life examples, personal reflections, exercises, and self-tests to help you along the road to recovering your own life. For anyone struggling with a relationship involving alchoholism or other compulsive behaviors, this program points the way to healing and the renewal of hope.

Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance

Do you use substances or engage in compulsive activities to regulate your mood? Do you reach for something sweet, a couple of drinks, or a pack of cigarettes after a difficult day because you can't unwind without them? Do you race to the stores to spend away the day's frustrations or run around in circles taking more time to get less done? If these self-defeating habits sound familiar, Emotional Sobriety will shed light on why and how these coping mechanisms threaten your health and impact resilience

Drop the Rock: Removing Character Defects, Steps Six and Seven (2nd. ed.)

Resentment. Fear. Self-pity. Intolerance. Anger. As Bill P. explains, these are the "rocks" that can sink recovery - or at the least block further progress. Based on the principles behind steps six and seven, Drop the Rock combines personal stories, practical advice, and powerful insights to help listeners move forward in recovery. The second edition features additional stories and a reference section.

Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting: The Co-Dependency Connection

Self-healing through self-parenting, a concept introduced a generation ago, has helped thousands of adult children of alcoholics who are codependent and have conflicts in their primary relationships. Now Patricia O'Gorman, PhD, and Phil Diaz, MSW, authors of the classic book The 12 Steps to Self-Parenting for Adult Children and its companion workbook, expand the reach of that successful healing paradigm to anyone who has suffered from any kind of trauma.

Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time

Alcoholism, drug abuse, and similar destructive practices can render families dysfunctional. When the children of these families become adults, they sometimes develop self-defeating survival tactics, such as low self-esteem or an obsession with controlling another person's behavior. To help those stuck in codependent cycles identify and eliminate such troubling issues from their relationships, Beattie shares wisdom gained from years of experience.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents' emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you'll learn how to create positive new relationships so you can build a better life.

The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed

Was your mother too busy, too tired, or too checked out to provide you with the nurturing you needed as a child? Men and women who were "undermothered" as children often struggle with intimate relationships, in part because of their unmet need for maternal care.

Healing the Shame That Binds You

Healing the Shame That Binds You is the most enduring work of family relationship expert and New York Times best-selling author John Bradshaw. In it, he shows how unhealthy toxic shame, often learned young and maintained into adulthood, is the core component in our compulsions, co-dependencies, addictions and drive to superachieve.

Let Go Now: Embracing Detachment

So many of us spend so much time enmeshed in other people's problems, trying to solve or change them, that we don't really know where we end and they begin. Not reacting to people or situations that provoke us is not an easy skill to develop. It takes practice and conviction that not reacting, not increasing the drama, doesn't mean we don't care. On the contrary, we are freed to show genuine love and care only when we can detach from the knee-jerk need to fix, solve, rescue, or control.

The Road Back to Me: Healing and Recovering from Co-Dependency, Addiction, Enabling, and Low Self Esteem

This story is told through the jagged peephole of the author's awareness, examining her formative wounds and influences from the perspective of a woman who has now gained experience and wisdom. As she peers over her soul's shoulder, she recalls the chaos of her once-fragile childhood mind. She shudders as she is reminded of the sting of her lonely childhood, her feelings of abandonment, and her painful memories of being bullied.

Marriage On The Rocks: Learning to Live with Yourself and an Alcoholic

Dr. Woititz, in her first, breakthrough book addresses the spouses of alcoholics who feel overwhelmed and desperate in their marriages. Her focus is to show that the boundaries of isolationism and depression that living with an alcoholic brings does not necessarily mean one cannot eventually find piece of mind - whether or not the alcoholic continues drinking. Marriage on the Rocks can show you the coping skills you deserve to have when alcoholism impacts your life.

These affirmations were specifically created to help heal the unconscious belief systems responsible for low self-esteem - low-self worth - guilt - shame - fear - and primarily codependency. All relationships in life are mirrors of the relationship we have with Self. The relationship we have with Self is the result of the value or lack of - we absorbed about Self when children. If when we were children and forming ideas about Self - we were taught to believe we had no worth - then our ideas about Self are fractured.

This "codependent no more" program was designed to enhance the listener's ability to release codependent tendencies, release the victim mentality, gain a more powerful sense of self through personal responsibility, gain more moderate thinking, and to assist in gaining healthy boundaries.

Shame & Guilt: Masters of Disguise

"It is my feeling that debilitating shame and guilt are at the root of all dysfunctions in families," says Jane Middelton-Moz. A few common characteristics of adults shamed in childhood: You may suffer extreme shyness, embarrassment and feelings of being inferior to others. You don't believe you make mistakes, you believe you are a mistake. You feel controlled from the outside and from within. You feel that normal spontaneous expression is blocked. You may suffer from debilitating guilt; you apologize constantly.

Becoming the Narcissist's Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself

Although clinical research has been conducted on narcissism as a disorder, less is known about its effects on victims who are in toxic relationships with partners with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Individuals with this disorder engage in chronic devaluation and manipulation of their partners, a psychological and emotional phenomenon known as "narcissistic abuse". Unfortunately, the full extent of what narcissistic abuse entails is not taught in any psychology class or diagnostic manual.

Make Miracles in Forty Days: Turning What You Have into What You Want

Melody Beattie has been a trusted counselor for millions of people for more than 25 years. Her books are infinitely relatable, flush with candor and insights, and rooted in firsthand experience. Make Miracles in Forty Days is punctuated with Beattie's own stirring stories of overcoming obstacles and dealing with life's tragedies.

Publisher's Summary

Ten years ago, Janet Woititz broke new ground in our understanding of what it is to be an adult child of an alcoholic. Today, she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of adult children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After more than 10 years of working with ACoAs, she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Listen to Adult Children of Alcoholics to see where the journey began and for ideas on where to go from here.

This book provides wisdom and information for all adult children of dysfunctional families.

I had the book in print for years and it's dog-eared pages and highlighted text well, sometimes was really hard to put down and then pick up again. Hearing it was really amazing...so glad this is in audio finally. One AHA moment that I had was the patience or "now" factor...why I must do things or have things "now" this was something I didn't fully get from the written text. I wish all her titles on this topic were in audio.

If you had an alcoholic parent ... i think you should read this book even if you think you don't ... this book awakened me to facts i have never even considered ... it helped me understand so many aspects of my personality and deal with so many of my problems

I really found this book to be very enlightening. It was written and read well. As it is not my first book on the subject, it was more reinforcing in nature, which was fine. It helped me articulate issues that I needed to convey to my therapist. The narrator did a great job, she made the book feel less technical and more humanistic, as it should be.

The format of the book as that each of the characteristics of ACOA's were concisely explored first. Then when we got to the section where she was to offer some ways to address the related issues. Well, it seemed she rehashed the explanation of the issues again.

But I see the problem with this. The bottom line is, all one can do is offer some generalized insight on how to address these issues. Overcoming them is a very daunting and personal challenge. So I don't fault her. I'll keep this as a reference and highly recommend it to others who are ACOA's. It's definitely ON POINT!

This book explains so much as to why there is so much pain and suffering in our world caused by alcoholics and the condition they suffer from. A well executed audio version of the print classic. Could not recommend it more.

Would you try another book written by Janet Geringer Woititz or narrated by Therese Plummer?

I don't know. The reader was okay (a bit too quick). The book itself good in content but extremely concise. I am ACoA and part of my recovery/therapy is read or listen to good texts. This book is almost like reading an Encyclopedia, so brief. I wish it had more examples written in more elaborate manner. I got a great deal from this book but was frustrated with the approach.

If you’ve listened to books by Janet Geringer Woititz before, how does this one compare?

NA

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narrator was okay. The only thing maybe would be to read slower. The text is so packed with meaning that it could allow the listener to absorb the content better.

Any additional comments?

I will hold to this book inspite of my frustration expressed earlier. I need to listen to it again and pause at times in order to digest the content and relate it to my life, think of other examples.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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